By my side
Laura Harris, 42, from Barnstaple, cared for cancer sufferers and then the tables were turned.
Iloved my job as a cancer nurse on the Oncology unit at North Devon District hospital. But losing patients to the disease was never easy. I’d decided to train to be a nurse after my own grandmother, June, had died of bladder cancer, aged 63, when I was aged just 11.
So in 1998, I’d moved from my home in Baltimore, USA, married an Englishman, and started training as a nurse.
Along the way, I had two children – Noah, now 16, and Molly, now 13.
In time, I started working as a cancer research nurse, and soon became a cancer nurse specialist.
My job involved caring for patients who needed more intense treatment, sitting with them through their chemotherapy sessions, and treating their symptoms.
I got to know them so well, and understood all their hopes and dreams.
Seeing someone go into remission after the hell that they’d been through was so rewarding.
It would give me so much hope.
But when a patient passed away, it was just devastating. I’d feel for their family. And it made me value my own so much more.
After my marriage ended in 2010, I started to date Paul, now 44. Life was perfect.
But in May 2016, I started to have problems with my bowels.
For most of my life, they’d been a bit sluggish.
I couldn’t eat starchy foods and often suffered with constipation. It was just something I’d learned to live with.
But now the problem was getting worse.
I was bloated, I’d lost my appetite and couldn’t go to the loo – even with strong laxatives.
A few months later, my bones started to ache, too.
Because of my experience, I had a niggling worry.
‘I’m worried it’s cancer,’ I said to my doctors.
But I was told time and again that it was nothing serious. ‘Maybe work is getting to me,’ I said to Paul.
Caring for sick people could often make me paranoid and made me think the worst.
This went on for months. Then, one day in early 2017, I had severe pains in my abdomen.
Unable to get a GP appointment,
Paul took me straight to hospital – the one where I worked. There, I was given a scan. But it took longer than normal. Worryingly so.
That niggling anxiety was now impossible to ignore.
‘We need to be prepared this could be cancer,’ I said to Paul.
Ten minutes later, we were told just that.
‘You have cancer in your spine,’ the doctor told me.
The cancer had started elsewhere in my body.
I needed more tests to find out exactly where.
But the part I wasn’t expecting was harder to take in.
‘It’s terminal,’ the doctor said. ‘But we can prolong your life with chemo and other drugs.’ I was dying? ‘What are we going to do?’ I said to Paul between sobs. ‘Laura, we’re going to get married,’ he said. I was really touched, despite everything. But, together, we faced an even bigger challenge – telling my children. Coming together as a family, along with their dad and his new partner, we told Molly and Noah the details. Hugging me, they were both distraught. But we reassured them that all of us were there for them. I took some time off work that January, but I was determined to go back after my treatment. I wanted to keep my life as normal as possible. Back at the hospital, I was officially diagnosed the following
Losing my patients was hard
Friday, with bowel cancer.
And by the Monday, I began chemotherapy on my unit.
It was surreal being in the ward where I’d normally be treating my patients – now I was the patient.
My colleagues were heartbroken to hear the news, as were my patients, who I now sat alongside.
The look of sadness in their eyes broke my heart, too.
It was so strange to be on the other side, like a weird dream.
Sometimes I just couldn’t believe it was actually happening.
I started strong, invasive chemo, which I’d have every two weeks, along with other drugs to try to shrink the tumours.
Though I knew exactly what to expect, it didn’t make the side effects any easier.
I lost a lot of weight and my skin began to peel.
And though I didn’t actually lose my hair like I thought I would, it became so brittle it had to eventually be cropped short.
That May, I came off the chemo to give my body a rest and allow time for me to get married. Seeing Paul’s face as I walked into our garden, where we were holding our ceremony, was just priceless.
I’d lost a lot of weight, so my flowing white dress with diamantes hung off me – but it didn’t matter, as I still felt so beautiful.
The day was filled with close friends and family, and I was so happy to finally be Paul’s wife.
Shortly after, I went back to work, doing any shifts I could handle. I also started my chemo again. But this January, we found out it wasn’t working.
The only drug that might prolong my life was called bevacizumab, but it wasn’t available on the NHS.
And it was expensive.
I needed £20,000 just for the first round alone.
‘Why don’t we crowdfund for it?’ my sister-in-law, Jo, 37, suggested.
So we told the local papers all about my cancer and the drug that I needed, in the hope that someone may help me.
Amazingly, over a few months, we managed to raise £80,000.
I couldn’t believe people could be so kind. I was so touched. Thankfully, we were able to buy the drug I needed, and in March
this year, I started on my first course. So far, it’s stopped the cancer from growing any further. But my doctors have warned that I may not have more than six months left to live. Before I go, I want to visit my family in America one more time – I just need to be well enough to fly there. I’m determined to fight as hard as I can to make it happen, as my family means everything to me. I’ve written my will, and we’ve decided that when I die, the children will go and live with their dad and his partner permanently. It’s heartbreaking to think that I won’t be here to see my son and daughter grow up – to watch them get married and have children of their own. But I know they’ll be in good hands. As for the medical staff caring for me, I hope they don’t shed any tears. I’ve loved my life, and I’m determined to keep on living it for as long as I can.
I don’t want any tears